


Summer Break

by dogfighter3000



Series: I Swear I'm Not Spiderman [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Domestic Avengers, Everyone Loves Peter Parker, Fluff, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Meets the Avengers, Peter Parker is a Mess, is there a tag for being dumb and sappy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21618340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogfighter3000/pseuds/dogfighter3000
Summary: School's out for summer!Which means two and a half chill months of hanging out with friends and fighting crime, for Peter Parker. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for this teen...right?
Relationships: Carol Danvers/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: I Swear I'm Not Spiderman [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334032
Comments: 5
Kudos: 224





	1. Cherry Bomb

**Author's Note:**

> this is a sequel to the spring break fic where Peter meets the original six avengers. You don't HAVE to read that to understand, but it'd probably clear some things up

It wasn't that Peter hated school.

Hell, there were some aspects of school that Peter even enjoyed, for the most part. Like science class, he did best in science and it never failed to grab his attention for the duration of the period. Whether it was biology, chemistry, oceanology, astrology, or anything in between, it always captivated the teen. And as much as he complained about it, he didn't despise math either. It wasn't easy, but there was something deeply satisfying in applying a certain formula or method to a problem and solving it correctly. 

Now, english and history? That was a different story. There was a reason why he went to a more science and math oriented school.

His feelings about the curriculum aside, it was only MJ sitting in the desk beside him that was stopping him from leaping out of his chair as the bell rang. She’d been shooting him warning glares every time he started squirming in his seat over the last half hour of class. Peter was always fidgety, but the last day of school really brought that to the forefront.

As the bell had finished ringing, he could hear kids cheering as they filed out into the hallway. It was finally summer break, and they had almost three months free to do whatever they wanted.

Peter had everything shoved into his bag and his arms through the straps in the time it took MJ to stand up from her desk and push her chair in.

“You do realize it won’t kill you to stay in the classroom thirty seconds after the bell rings, right?” she muttered as she picked up her bag and slid her notebook off the top of her desk and directly into the trash. A very ‘MJ’ move.

“I don’t want to waste any of my summer, dude!” Peter groaned, practically bouncing on the tips of his toes. “I have a feeling this is going to be the best summer of my life. Just picture it, me, you, Ned, hanging out every day. Maybe even going to the beach if my aunt has the weekend off.” he waggled his eyebrows up and down as the two headed out of their math classroom for the last time and down towards Peter’s old locker where they knew Ned would be waiting. 

Ned looked just about how Peter felt, ready to burst out of his skin.

“What took you guys so long???” he huffed, heading to the door as soon as Peter and MJ were close enough.

"For total nerds, you two sure are excited to get the hell out of dodge," MJ mumbled, reaching out to flick the back of Ned's head as she stepped around them to lead the group out of the high school.

"First off, rude! Secondly, there's a new pokémon game that came out a couple months ago and me and Peter finally saved up enough money to buy it!"

"First off," she began, mockingly. "Those games are for little kids. Secondly? Why don't you both pay for half the game and share it?"

"Oh, that's easy. Ned gets one game then I get the other one so we have both versions like black and white or sun and moon," Peter explains, like it's the easiest thing in the world to explain.

"Oh, obviously. What was I thinking, that makes total sense," MJ sighed, rolling her eyes at the insufferable boys trailing behind her.

MJ liked to sigh and roll her eyes, but Peter knew as soon as the two of them started playing the games she would want in. She just had to keep up her reputation of unbothered and unaffected by all things not dark and creepy. 

They were in line at GameStop when Peter's phone started to ring, his specific Tony Stark ringtone that made him nearly drop the video game. 

"Dude, is your ringtone Rich Girl by Hall and Oates?" Ned snorted, giving his best friend some major side eye.

"Very fitting," MJ nodded sagely. "Don't worry, I'm sure if you marry the right man he can make you into the rich girl you've been on the inside all along."

"Har dee har har, you guys. That's my Tony ringtone!!!" He hissed, whipping his phone out of the pocket and staring at the screen for longer than he probably should have.

"Pick it up! You can't just let Iron Man go to voicemail, are you nuts?" Ned whispered as quietly as he could, which admittedly wasn't very quiet.

Before Peter could click to accept the call, MJ had snatched the phone out of his hands, answering for him.

"Hey, this is Peter Parker, Nerd Extraordinaire," she drawled into the phone, standing as tall as she could so neither of the boys could reach up to grab the phone away. "Just might who this be?"

"MJ!!! No!" Peter whisper yelled, trying to yank the phone back, but she had him held back with her free hand.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. "This is an orderly from Stark Industries, could you take a message for Mr. Parker?"

"This IS Mr. Parker, but sure. I'll take a message,"

"Tell him his internship is terminated and to get his girlfriend off the phone so I can talk to him," Tony muttered, sounding all too amused on the other end of the phone.

"Will do, Mr. Orderly, sir," MJ said, doing a salute despite the fact that the man on the phone would have no idea. "Peter you're fired, lmao."

"Did you just say LMAO out loud?" The genius asked incredulously.

"MJ! Give me phone back!" Peter squeaked, getting more flustered by the minute, face red as he had to jump up to successfully tear the phone from her hand after she raised it over her head. "Mr. Stark! Hey! Sorry, MJ had the phone. She's crazy, ignore her."

She punched Peter in the arm. "I am a sweet treat. I am a fucking delight to be around."

"I'm not actually fired, that was a joke...right?" 

"No, Nerd Extraordinaire. You're not fired," How Tony had figured out how to translate the fact that he was rolling his eyes over the phone without actually saying it would stump Peter for years. "You just finished school, right? I had a couple of software updates I wanted to add to the suit. Swing by the lab?"

"Yeah that sounds great!" Peter had been to both the tower and Compound multiple times beforehand, but everytime he was invited he still got an excited rush in his guts that felt like butterflies but if the teen called them butterflies he'd probably get shoved into a locker.

From the corner of his eye he could see Ned staring at him intently. Guilt stabbed him in the gut, knocking all the butterflies dead. They'd been waiting to play this game together since November.

"I mean, that sounds great, but, uh…" the two other teens gave the brunette a strange look as he stuttered over an excuse. "I've got a thing today. Ned and I made plans so I can't-"

"God, MJ, just take his phone back and answer for him. Put us out of our misery," Ned groaned, throwing his arms out to the side.

"Don't have to ask me twice, " she muttered, stealing the phone from Peter like she had been waiting to do this since he got it back in the first place. "He'll be over in liiiiike… " she looked at the long line in front of them. "Like half an hour? Maybe forty-five minutes. Later, loser."

"Loser? How-" MJ hung up before Tony could finish what was likely to be an impressive lecture.

"I can't believe after everything we've been through you still try and ditch an actual superhero to hang out with us," she sighed, almost sounding like she was disappointed in him.

"Yeah, Peter. I get that you wanna stay loyal to your friends, or whatever. But you can totally be loyal to us and a kickass superhero at the same time," Ned rolled his eyes.

"Are you sure? We've been trying to play this game forever now…"

"And once we buy it, it's not going anywhere! We have all summer to play Pokémon,"

"Nerds."

"Shut up, MJ."

"Make me, shortstack."

"Thanks guys," Peter grinned, excitedly bouncing on his toes.

"Hell yeah, man. Besides, this isn't entirely selfless," Ned said with a sly grin. "The more buddy-buddy you get with the superheroes, the more sleepovers we get to have with them."

"Yeah. I wanna see how much stuff in the tower I can hide before Tony starts going crazy,"

"That is SO scary, so I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Peter laughed, shaking his head.

As soon as the teens had purchased their video games, Ned putting both games in his bag despite Peter insisting he should take the games home so Ned didn't start playing without him and subsequently beat the game before the brunette even put the cartridge into his nintendo. 'It's not my fault you're so slow at video games,' Ned huffed, making Peter flustered as he struggled to explain that he liked to wander around and find every secret item he could, and how easily you could pass secret caves full of gold.

Needless to say, Peter arrived at the tower about 15 minutes late, but at least he could walk there. The Avengers Compound was much harder to get to.

Tony had started inviting Peter to the lab in his personal garage of the Stark Industries Tower, a few months after spring break. It was way more convenient than being drove all the way to upstate New York just to spend 5 minutes there repairing the suit or reinstalling the tiny reconnaissance drone in the center of his suit after it was 'mysteriously' smashed to bits one night. 

Peter swears on his life it wasn't his fault, but Karen's footage, of him tripping over some loose gravel and landing on the ground chest first, says otherwise.

So if Tony needed to meet up with Spiderman quickly in between meetings or after school one day, he would simply call his protege and invite him to the lab. It was about a twenty minute walk from his apartment and a thirty minute walk from the school.

The only downside to meeting in Stark Towers was the looks he received when he walked into the building. It must be some kind of ego trip to watch a sixteen year old boy in worn-out jeans and an old t-shirt waltz into New York’s main headquarters for SI and then head directly towards the private elevator. Even worse when that kid has the proper clearance and everything and can head straight down to the labs Tony Stark himself works in.

Of course, not a single of those thoughts crosses Peter’s mind as he crosses the busy lobby. He waves at the receptionist, and tries to ignore the shocked looks from some old man in a suit in line to speak to said receptionist and makes his way to where he needs to be.

The garage lab of the tower might be the teen’s favorite place to hang out in, even more than any room in the Avenger’s Compound. It was something about how lived in it seemed. From the well-loved coffee machine on the counter in the back corner to the ditzy bots that wheeled themselves around as they pleased, it put Peter at ease the second he walked through the glass doors.

“You’re late, bug boy. That’ll be coming out of your next paycheck,” Tony called out, not so much as sparing a second to look over at the boy who just entered his lab. The genius was frantically cleaning up a project. There were tools being shoved haphazardly into his tool cart and he was brushing scrap metal, bolts, and broken motherboards into a drawer.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, Mr. Stark. They line at Game Stop was super long and-”

“Please do not say another word or I might actually go ballistic and break a power drill over my knee in rage,” the man mumbled as he slammed the last of his drill bits into the plastic case, not bothering to put them in the correct places. “You blew me off for video games??”

“Technically I didn’t blow you off! I’m here! I came so we can work on the suit,” Peter tried to redeem himself, slipping his backpack off and tugging out his suit. He held it up like a trophy. “And it was Pokémon.” 

“Nope. No way. Ignoring everything you just said,” Tony sighed, hands raised in the air as he walked towards the doors to the lab. He took the long way around solely to put as much space as he could between him and the teen. “You were late so now you’re on my schedule, and my schedule says I’m heading out.”

“Heading out? Do you have a meeting?”   
  


“Something like that. I’ll be back in like twenty minutes, boy wonder. If anyone comes down here asking where I am, you say  _ nothing, _ ” The billionaire mimed zipping up his lips and tossing the key. “I mean it, blabbermouth. I was gone before you got here.”

“Okay, Mr. Stark but what should I do while I’m…” Peter trailed off, his mentor had already slipped on a pair of orange shades and snuck out of the room. It was just him and the bots now. “Great, ok. I’ll just hold down the fort while you’re gone, I guess.”

From the corner of the room, Dum-E beeped sadly.

“Aw, did your mean old dad leave you all alone again?” Peter grinned, cramming his suit back into his bag and tossing it on the table. The robot beeped again, sounding as pathetic as a robotic arm lab assistant can. “Well that’s not any good, is it? What do you say me and you work on something until Mr. Stark gets back? We can make it a surprise,”

Dum-E whirred excitedly, rolling away it’s charging station over to one of the tables Tony had shoved his scraps into before leaving. U stayed at it’s port, swiveling around almost nervously, like it was afraid to be caught doing things it shouldn’t while it’s creator wasn’t there.

“Do you think you could point out what Tony wouldn’t mind me using?” Peter asked the bot in front of him. It took him talking to Dum-E directly for him to realize just how weird this situation was, it’s not as though the claw can respond to him in anyways. How did the robot even understand the commands it was being told? The teen was going to interrogate his mentor as soon as he’s back from wherever he disappeared too.

Just as Peter was starting to arrange the small sheet metal scraps and old pieces of broken technology into the rough shape of what he wanted to build, the glass door to the lab swung open violently, causing the boy to nearly jump up to the ceiling for cover.

“Where is he?” the woman who just stormed the lab asked, hurriedly pushing aside obstacles in her ways as if whoever she was looking for would be hiding behind tool carts or under tables.

“I-um...who?” Peter asked sheepishly, nervously sliding the project he had been working on to the side.

“Tony Stark. The man’s got an ego the size of the empire state building, he’s kind of hard to miss!” she sighed, throwing her arms out in exasperation. The woman turned to squint at Peter, like she had just now noticed the kid perched atop one of the stools in the top secret lab. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Now with the full brunt of her attention on him, he realized just who was speaking to him. It was none other than the CEO of Stark Industries herself, Pepper Potts. MJ would kill him to be in his shoes right now and he couldn’t wait to tell her about it as long as he made it out of this alive. Pepper looked pissed.

“I’m, uh, the intern,” Peter was sweating. What temperature did Tony keep his lab, it felt nothing short of boiling in the lab right now.

“Interns of Stark Industries aren’t permitted anywhere in Stark Towers without their IDs in plain sight,” Pepper recited, almost like she had the entire employee handbook memorized. Which, now that the teen thought of it, she probably did. “Besides, Mr. Stark’s lab is off-limits for all employees of SI. I’ll ask one more time, who are you?”

He really wished MJ was here now. Seeing Pepper Potts in action like this would make her entire summer. The CEO was smart and ruthless when it comes to being in charge of her company. It was admirable, but also super inconvenient if you were a teenage superhero trying to keep a secret identity and also not get thrown into jail for breaking into a billionaire’s secret laboratory.

“I’m...one of his personal interns,” Peter tried for a reassuring smile but it came out as more of a grimace. “More like an assistant, really.”

There was a brief moment of silence where the two just stared at each other before a flash of understanding crossed the woman’s face, like she had just remembered something she was told a long time ago.

“So, you’re a lab assistant, huh?”

“Uh-I, yes.”

“Seeing as he spends ninety percent of his time hidden down here, then you must have seen him today, right?” Pepper asked, raising an eyebrow and resting the thick folder she was carrying lean against her hip.

“Actually, uh, he was gone before I even got here…” Peter rubbed the back of his neck nervously, glancing to Dum-E like the robot could rescue him from Pepper’s wrath. The machine beeped quietly and wheeled away from where it had been perched between the two human occupants of the room.

“I see,” Pepper hummed, casually strolling around the lab with eyes like a hawk. “And did he tell you to say that himself? Or did you come up with that your line on your own?”

All the air rushed out of the teen at once. It was next to impossible to get anything past her and he was glad she had just called him out. At least he could say he tried.

“Yeah, he told me to say that,” Peter sighed, looking up sheepishly at the CEO. “He left as soon as I got here. I really have no idea where he went, but he said he’d be back in twenty minutes.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Typical.” She muttered before finding a place to sit on the opposite side of the table from Peter. “Then I suppose I’ll just have to wait for him right here.”

“Did he do something wrong?”

“Knowing him? Probably at least half a dozen things this morning alone,” She rolled her eyes, but Peter could tell she did it out of fondness for the man. “Right in this instance? He’s dodging an annual meeting with several board members who previously worked under Obadiah Stane.”

“Stane? As in that creepy old nutjob who tried to kill Mr. Stark, like, forever ago?” Peter wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“That’s a kinder way of explaining that entire debacle, but yes. Tony always avoids this meeting like the plague,” Pepper sighed. She set her folder on the counter to shuffle the papers that had nearly fallen out in her mad dash down to the basement levels back into a neat stack. “And I’m always left to play damage control when he fails to show up.”

“But not this time?” the teen grinned slyly, tugging his project back out from where he had shoved it to the side.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she mumbled, a tiny smile pulling at the corner of her lips.

“Really? Cause it kind of looks like you’re hiding from the meeting too,” Peter shrugged as he started screwing panels together.

“I’m simply making sure Mr. Stark is safe and well so he can attend the meeting as planned,” Pepper insisted, before turning her attention to what the boy across from her was creating. “What about you, Mr…?”

“Parker,” Peter grinned up at her for a moment. “And I’m not hiding from anyone. Mr. Stark invited me here so we could work on my su-I mean, our most recent project.”

“I see. Is that it right there?” she asked, pointing to where he was feeding wire through a whole in the front panel of the machine he was building. 

“Nah, this is just something quick I’m doing until he gets back.”

“Something quick?” Pepper said incredulously. “You’re a crazed genius just like him, aren’t you? Creating a robot to pass the time, please tell me you aren’t going to be Ironman’s sidekick anytime soon.”

“What? No!” Peter laughed nervously, not liking how close to the truth she had been.

“Good, let’s hope it stays that way,” she shook her head with a smile. “So, tell me about what you’re working on.”

With that topic change, Peter was instantly at ease. If there was one thing he could do it was talk about his inventions. After the homecoming disaster he had started rejoining some of the clubs he had ditched for Spiderman business. One of which was the robotics club which consisted of a lot of the same people from debate, but it was still the highlight or Peter’s monday afternoons.

The two of them sat and bantered back and forth as the teen assembled his newest creation. Thirty minutes came and past without either of them realizing until Tony Stark snuck back into his lab, only to find the very woman he’d been trying to avoid sitting and fraternizing with his protégé. 

  
  


“And where do you think you’re going?” Pepper called out, startling both Peter, who hadn’t been paying attention as he finished welding the head onto his robot, and Tony, who had been trying to stealthily sneak back the way he came. “Just where you have you been, Tony?”

“Would you believe me if I said saving the world?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“Then I was out getting lunch.”

Pepper sighed tiredly, standing up from the table to glare at her former boss. “This meeting has been scheduled for months.”

“I know it has! You haven’t let me forget it!”

“Exactly, I’ve been reminding you of this every day for the past two weeks,” Pepper rolled her eyes, gesturing to the genius hopelessly. “Do you see what I have to put up with?” She grumbled to Peter, who nodded solemnly. 

“Hey, no. Not fair. You don’t get to drag the tyke into this,” Tony warned, putting his hands on his hips like he was putting his foot down.

“She’s kind of got a point, Mr. Stark,” Peter mumbled, avoiding eye contact by attaching the wheels.

“Now you’re picking sides?? Pepper, you’ve torn this family apart!” the billionaire yelled in anguish, throwing his arms open dramatically. “Jarvis! Schedule family counseling at once, I’m not letting this woman take the kids!”

“Oh, so you’re referring to me as ‘This Woman’ now, huh?”

“Ok, not my brightest moment. Listen-”

“Done!!” Peter crowed in triumph. Both the adults in the room turned to stare at him. He smiled nervously and awkwardly gestured to the scrap metal turned robot in front of him. “Sorry, I...uh…”

“No, that’s fine. Don’t worry. You weren’t interrupting a thing, kid,” Pepper turned to glare at Tony as he used the bot as an excuse to avoid her. “Please, underoos, tell us what you’ve done.”

“First off, I’m really starting to despise that nickname. Secondly, It’s nothing fancy because I just made him out of scrap. Assuming I built him correctly, if you press this red button he should just start driving around like crazy,” Peter explained, gesturing to the large, obvious button in the center of his creation’s back. “His name is RED!”

“RED, is it?” Tony hummed, squatting down to be eye level with the stationary machine and squint at it. “Weld lines are sort of messy, but nothing major. What’s the name stand for?”

“Radically Engineered Device.”

“I’m immediately sorry I asked.”

“Tony, I believe we were discussing something?” Pepper interjected, snatching up her folder and waving it in his face.

“Can’t you see we’re making groundbreaking discoveries, right now?” Tony removed his shades, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he was put upon. “I swear, she has no respect for the sciences. Let’s see how this bad boy works.”

In an effort to move the topic off of Tony purposely skipping an important meeting, he pressed the big red button. RED immediately lurched off the table and zoomed across the lab, much faster than Peter had intended.

“I...might have misjudged the weight and how powerful the engine needed to be to carry that weight…” The boy muttered quietly as he watched RED slam into walls, the bumper sending it backwards a couple of feet so it could veer off in a different direction.

“And...that...is...perfect!” Tony cheered, staring at his phone before clapping his hands together in celebration.

“Oh? Thanks Mr. Stark!” Peter was surprised by the warm praise, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to pass it up.

“Those old dickheads just walked out of the board room and down to the lobby to wait for their drivers! You’re too late!” 

“Ugh! You are insufferable, Tony Stark,” Pepper groaned, tossing the papers right back down. Peter, quietly prayed that nobody would acknowledge him mistaking Tony’s praise for being about his robot. “Do you know how much groveling I’m going to have to do for those bastards?”

“At least you didn’t have to sit up in the room alone with them? You can just say you were off searching for a wild and unruly Mr. Stark,” Peter shrugged.

Pepper smiled over at him, shaking her head. “You’re a good kid, Mr. Parker. Hopefully some of that rubs off on Mr. Stark. He could use some humility.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, but it’s nice to dream, isn’t it?” Tony sighed, staring wistfully into the distance. Pepper looked like she was gearing up to roll her folder and start swatting the genius with it, but at that moment, RED shot out from under a table. The bot rammed into Tony’s ankle, making him yelp, lifting his bruised leg away from the speeding device.

“This might be one of the best robots I’ve seen yet,” Pepper turned to Peter with a big grin. Dum-E beeped sadly from where he had plugged himself in at his charging port. “Would you mind making about 50 more of them? All built with a natural aversion to Starks?”

“I’ll get right on it, ma’am.”


	2. Come As You Are

Peter tossed his overnight bag to the side of the couch before promptly crashing into it face first.

“I could sleep here until I die, Mr. Stark. I’m becoming one with the couch,” the teen sighed, words muffled by the throw pillow he had fallen into.

“It’s only 2 AM, sport. You’ll live,” Tony muttered as he wandered into the kitchen to start the coffee machine.

Peter groaned loudly in response, stretching out even further.

“Or you could, and I’m just spitballing here, you could go to bed?” Tony rolled his eyes, shoving the kid aside so he could sit on the couch and enjoy his mug of liquid energy and scroll on his Starkpad.

“You’re one to talk,” Peter grumbled, stretching his legs across Tony’s lap as he grabbed onto the pillow he had been accidentally suffocating himself with and punched it into a more comfortable position. “Coffee’s not a particularly good pre-bedtime drink.”

“I’m sorry what was that?” Tony asked, pinching the back of Peter’s knee, making the boy yelp.

“Nothing! Nothing!!!” He laughed, trying to squirm away from his mentor. “I’ll go to bed in a little bit, I’m too comfy here.”

Tony just grunted in response before taking a sip of his drink and continuing to tap away at his screens. The two of them had spent the entire afternoon and evening holed away in the lab, trying to synthesize a stronger web serum that still kept the previous version’s properties. His current webbing stretched a bit more than Peter was comfortable with while carrying extra weight like civilians he was saving.

Or ‘Swinging around with that terrifying girlfriend of yours. Don’t try and deny it, I’ve seen the photos, Romeo.’ as Tony unhelpfully pointed out when the boy had brought the issue up.

Nonetheless, it had been something the two scientists were intent to improve upon. Time, like usual, had slipped through their fingers. It wasn’t until Peter nearly mixed his ginger ale into the eleventh test mixture in the last 16 hours that he concluded it was time for a short break. The two grabbed cold, stale pizza out of the lab fridge and practically crawled into the elevator up to the common area of the compound.

Well, Peter basically crawled. Tony was practically in his element, this late at night.

Speaking of Tony, he was bent over his protegee right now, gently shaking his shoulders. “You gotta get up, kid. I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here. Who knows what might get to you out here on the couch? Might get mauled by a wild animal or something...or worse, Rogers might try and talk to you.”

“Whatzit? Huh?” Peter grunted, blinking around the dimly lit living area groggily. Judging by the empty coffee mug on the end table, it seems he might have dozed off after getting cozy on the couch. He probably needed the rest, it’d been a long time since he got a full night’s sleep.

“Your room is literally right down the hallway. Don’t make me carry you there like the toddler you are,” Tony mumbled, tucking his glasses into the neck of the old band shirt he’d worn in the lab. 

Instead of responding, Peter raised his arms up expectantly.

“Goodnight, brat.”

The teen couldn’t stop himself from giggling almost deliriously as he watched his mentor shuffle off to the elevator so he could get to the private floor where his room was. Eventually he managed to drag himself off of the couch and stumbled over himself to his bedroom. 

He struggled out of his jeans, promising to himself that he’d take a shower as soon as he woke up in the morning. Peter had been sleepily trying to jerk his left foot from the cuff of his pants when he slipped, his body hitting the wall with a loud knocking sound that made him simultaneously wince and laugh at himself.

“Smooth move, Parker,” the hero hummed to himself before finally shrugging out of his lab-stained shirt and his undershirt, tossing them to the side before slipping on a soft hoodie. “Night, Red.” he yawned, patting the sleeping bot on his desk before slipping into his bed at last.

It wasn’t long before he dozed off, only to wake up when a bright light filtered through the wall of windows that separated his room from the world outside the Compound. Peter felt like he hadn’t slept at all. He rolled over to bury his face into his pillows.

“Fridayyyy! I asked you to keep the windows dark when the sun’s up,” Peter groaned, yanking his covers over his head. He really wasn’t ready to wake up and face the world.

“That is correct, Mr. Parker. It is currently 3:16 in the morning, far before when the sun will rise,” The AI informed him, leaving the groggy teen confused.

“Three in the…?” He pushed himself into an upright position. “Then what’s with the light show out there?” the brunette wondered aloud, slipping out of his bed to survey the field outside the massive Avengers building.

Beside the Compound was a woman who was radiating bright light as she floated down to land carefully on the concrete landing zone that was usually used for quinjets or the occasional spaceship. Also Thor, since the last time he visited Earth he had burned the bifrost symbol into the balcony and Tony had been less than pleased about it. There was someone down there to meet the glowing person and Peter had to squint to make them out.

“Friday? Who’s down there talking to Colonel Rhodes?” the teen hero asked from where he was pressed against the window, watching as the orange glow coming from her dimmed,and her short blonde hair fell down around her face. She was strolling up to the Iron Patriot and tugging him into a hug with easy familiarity.

“Colonel James Rhodes is speaking with Carol Danvers, also known as Captain Marvel,” FRIDAY responded.

“Is she...like an alien?” Peter felt a little bad about watching the two of them out there, it kind of felt like spying, but he had never seen anything like that and the curiosity was driving him mad. He was just checking to see if she would come into the Compound or fly back into outer space, that’s all.

“She’s a human, like you,” FRIDAY said simply. There was more to it, but he didn’t press any further, feeling like he had already pried enough.

Carol and Rhodey were in the middle of a conversation. Peter was contemplating whether he should just go back to sleep and just hope he would get to meet her in the morning when all of a sudden the mysterious woman pointed directly towards where he was staring out of his bedroom window. The boy was so surprised he flipped over his bed, slipped on his discarded clothes from earlier, and then landed right on his ass.

“You don’t think she saw me, right???” Peter nervously peered over the edge of his bed. “Oh god, oh god! I was just in my boxers! Why didn’t I think to put pants on before looking out the window?”

“Colonel Rhodes is requesting your presence out on the landing zone. Would you like me to tell him you’re asleep?” FRIDAY asked with way too much amusement in her automated voice. Leave it to Mr. Stark to create a sadistic, sarcastic A.I.

“What are the odds they didn’t see me up here, stalking them like a loser?”

“Slim to none.”

“Thanks, Fri. Tell him I’ll be down in a couple minutes,” Peter sighed, getting up from where he had been crouched on the floor. In the dim light of his dark bedroom he grabbed the first pair of pajama pants from his dresser, and slipped on the pair of snowman slippers aunt May had gotten him last Christmas.

If he dragged his feet to the elevator and down towards the back exit of the building that was nobody’s business but his. Through the glass doors he could see that Rhodey and Carol had moved to one of the benches underneath the awning. They were sat pretty close together, and if Peter wasn’t as dead tired as he was now, he probably would have made a joke about it as he pushed out of the door and shuffled over to the two superheroes.

“Hi, Mr. Rhodes. Friday said you wanted to talk to me?” Peter prayed he wouldn’t mention seeing him in the window. He hadn’t had an opportunity to formally meet the colonel yet and this would be such a shitty first introduction.

Rhodey had seen Peter in Tony’s lab a couple of times, when the man had stopped by to try and force the manic genius into eating some food or getting some sleep. As far as the colonel knew, Peter was just another intern of Stark Industries, albeit an extremely high clearance one. Seeing as the teen spent the night in the Avengers Compound. Rhodey had to have been suspicious of him, but thus far he hadn’t brought up any superhero related queries. Hopefully that meant he was in the clear.

“Hey, Peter. I just figured you’d get to know Carol better out here rather than through your bedroom window,” Rhodes had a smug grin on his face as he raised an eyebrow.

“Aw, man. I’m sorry! I really didn’t mean to be a little creep, it was just SUPER bright when she flew down, is all. I wanted to see what was going on and…” Peter’s face was bright red and he was resisting the urge to make up a convenient excuse to leave or just straight up web himself to the roof as fast as possible. The two adults in front of him look way too amused.

“Peter, was it?” Carol asked with a grin, waiting for his confirmation. “It’s nice to meet you, Peter. I’m Carol Danvers. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“No, it’s totally fine! That was actually, like, super cool. I’d only been asleep for like...twenty minutes anyways. I’m Peter Parker,” Peter shook his head, now that he was here in front of Captain Marvel herself he was getting kind of starstruck. “Can I ask you a question?” Carol nodded. “How high up can you fly?”

“As high as I want to,” she shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “Could I ask YOU a question?”

“Sure!”

“Where’d you get the Hello Kitty pants from? They’re super rad.”

Peter’s eyes widened, glancing down to the fleece pajama pants he was wearing in the light of the backyard floodlights. Of all the clothes he owned, he just HAD to pick the pants of shame. Rhodey was making a poor attempt to conceal his laughter.

“These? I - uh, well, technically Mr. Stark picked them out, so…” Peter sputtered.

“Oh, I see. An embarrassing gift from your dad. It all makes sense now,” Carol chuckled, like that entire statement hadn’t rendered Peter completely speechless.

“I-what?! No! I - Mr. Stark? Kid? What!” This was embarrassing, could Peter not have one good first impression? Was his life just some cruel cosmic joke? Was he being a little too dramatic right now? Maybe.

“What’s wrong? I thought you were Stark’s kid?” Carol looked confused before turning to glare at Rhodey, who instantly threw his hands up in surrender. “You told me he was Stark’s kid!”

“Don’t get mad at me! I told you that I was PRETTY SURE he was Tony’s,” the man corrected, defensively.

This was like his first meeting with the God of Thunder all over again. What was it with powerful, blonde strangers who came from the sky assuming that Peter Parker was Tony Stark’s secret love child? The teen turned to Rhodey.

“You think that Tony’s my dad?” he asked quietly, fiddling with the drawstrings to his pajama pants nervously. 

“I just assumed. Why else would you be in his lab every other day and sleeping at the Compound in the days between those,” Rhodey shrugged. “Not to mention you’re both short and dorky, it’s kind of obvious.”

“I am NOT dorky!”

“Nah, I think the colonel might have a point, soldier,” Carol teased. “I don’t spend much time on Earth, but something tells me that the popular kids don’t wear kitty-cat pants and...hoodies with Thor’s hammer on them.”

“Thor’s cool, ok!” Peter defended himself, but still crossed his arms over the mjolnir symbol on his sweatshirt all the same. “It’s too late for you to be roasting me this badly. Or too early. I don’t know, I’m tired.”

“Don’t worry about, kid,” Carol stood up, ruffling the teen’s hair and messing it up even more. “Colonel’s not so cool, either. A big dork just like the rest of you.”

“That’s enough out of you, captain,” Rhodey huffed as he stood up as well. “Say goodbye, Peter. Our esteemed guest has to be on her way now. Galaxies to save and whatnot.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, but he was fighting back a smile.

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Peter asked, sounding much more upset than he had meant to. It was so late, and he was too exhausted to hide his disappointment. “But I’ve got so many questions to ask you! Like how you can fly and what space is like and if you have any other powers and - and -” The teen yawned mid sentence, pausing to rub his eyes sleepily. Unbeknownst to him, the two adults exchanged a look over Peter’s head. “Just stay a few more minutes?”

“I’ll make you a deal, Peter Parker,” Carol started, putting on a serious face as she looked down at him. Well, technically she looked right at him, seeing as they were nearly the same height. It was something about her intimidating look that made her seem half a foot taller than him. “I’ll stick around here a little longer than I planned, on one condition.”

“Of course!”

“You go get some sleep before you pass out where you stand,” She joked, stoic mask breaking to grin mischievously at the half-asleep boy. “Seriously, this is pitiful.”

“Ok, ok!” Peter laughed, shaking his head. As much as he wanted his questions answered, he probably wouldn’t remember any of her answers if he didn’t get some shuteye soon. “You promise you’ll be here in the morning?”

“Only if you’re making waffles,” Carol nodded before pointing back to the dark Compound. “Now go get some rest, soldier. You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow and I want you up at six sharp!”

“That’s like two and a half hours from now!”

“Enough back talk, march!” She yelled out as Peter shuffled back to the giant building, both of them trying to hold in laughter as Colonel Rhodes just watched with a fond smile on his face.

As soon as Peter was inside and heading back to his room, he turned to Carol, still grinning.

“Cute kid, huh?” Rhodey asked, raising an eyebrow at where Carol was trying to act like that boy didn’t already have her wrapped around his little finger within ten minutes of them meeting.

“I guess,” She sniffed, trying to look unaffected as she gazed up at the stars above them. “He just reminds me of a friend of mine’s kid…”

Rhodes put a comforting hand on her shoulder and gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Now where were we before we were interrupted?” Carol cleared her throat. She looked back to the colonel with a tough look on her face like she could just will away any sad thoughts.

“Let me just double check before we get back to that,” Rhodey rolled his eyes, grabbing his phone out of his pocket to talk into it. “Hey, FRIDAY. Is Peter back in his room and keeping his eyes to himself?”

“Mr. Parker was asleep as soon as he hit the bed,” The A.I. replied immediately, making the two heroes laugh.

“He’s going to drive you nuts with questions tomorrow, you know that right?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was worried I wouldn't be able to write Carol but she's basically just like writing Tony with emotional intelligence, and might be one of my favorites now
> 
> thank you for reading!


	3. Close Your Eyes

Peter had thought about what Rhodey had said for almost an entire week after the night he met Captain Marvel. About how Rhodey had assumed Tony was his father because of the way he treated him. 

The teen’s first reaction was denial, there was no way that he earned special treatment from the genius. None of them had seen them take the suit away from him! Not that it wasn’t warranted, Peter thought, his own brain contradicting him. Besides, he gave the suit back after the Vulture incident, so did the short period of time he was ‘grounded’ for even count? Regardless, he basically went through the five stages of grief over Colonel Rhode’s off-hand comment, and finally ended up at acceptance as he sat between MJ and Ned on the couch in the living area of the Avengers Compound.

Yeah, maybe Tony spoiled Peter a little bit, but it’s not like he was gonna complain if he got to invite friends to the compound every time he got hurt.

“I think this is the scariest one yet, it’s like...actually good,” Ned whispered, reaching for the bowl of popcorn that resided in Peter’s lap. 

Last night Peter had been waiting for the police, with two webbed-up criminals next to a convenience store they’d attempted to rob, when a third accomplice sprinted from the alleyway beside the Seven Eleven and directly into traffic. Spiderman had managed to shove the runaway away from the front of the car, but he hadn’t been able to yank his leg out from underneath a tire as the car sped off.

Super healing was good for cuts and bumps and bruises, but broken bones? They still took time.

Both Tony and May had lost their minds when the teen finally hobbled home that night around an hour after the cops came. (Swinging on a web is hard with one leg out of commission.) Peter had thought that since a broken leg was much less serious than a bullet wound, he wouldn’t have to call his mentor. The first thing May did after simultaneously scolding him and checking him over was call Mr. Stark. So, he was grounded yet again, and to stay at the compound for further surveillance, in case anything healed wrong. Thus he was the designated popcorn holder for scary movie marathons since he couldn’t get up and go anywhere.

“It is,” Peter agreed, eyes transfixed on the large screen TV in front of them. “Sucks that it took them until the fourth Paranormal Activity to make something spectacular.”

“More like SPOOK-tacular,” Ned snorted, trying to hold in his laughter.

“Would you two airheads can it?” MJ groaned. “You two are such nerds that listening to you guys speak makes everything around me less scary in comparison.”

“Hey, that’s not fair! Peter and I could totally be scary if we wanted to,” Ned huffed, tossing a couple unpopped kernels from the bottom of the bowl at her. 

“Oh, please. You two are about as scary as a literal wet blanket. Just sitting there. A soggy, unmenacing lump of fabric,” Michelle rolled her eyes before returning her focus back to the movie. “Besides, NOTHING scares me.”

“That’s not true there’s gotta be something,” Peter protested. “I face bad guys every other week, and I’m still terrified of lots of things!”

“Like the dark and cockroaches,” Ned grinned, leaning over Peter’s stretched out legs to wiggle his eyebrows at MJ.

“Ok, Ned. You didn’t have to expose me like that,” Peter grumbled, flicking the top of his friend’s head from where he was laying in his lap.

“What? Maybe she just needed some examples.”

“I did not,” Michelle huffed, crossing her arms and glaring at the two boys. “Because I’m not scared of anything. Not the dark, not spiders, and definitely not B-list ghost movies.” she gestured to the movie still playing in the dark. They had decided since they were going to have a proper horror film marathon that they should turn off all the lights to set the mood.

“Not even gore? Or needles? Or getting a toothpick shoved under your toenail and then kicking a-”

“Ned! Shut up! You’re killing me, dude. I’m dead!”

“Or snakes? Snakes in your bed? Clowns? Drowning?” Ned ignored Peter’s protests as he listed common fears, trying to get a reaction from MJ who sat and stared with a straight face.

“No, none of that. I’m telling you, I’m not scared of anything,” she insisted.

“That’s bullshit. This is just like that time you lied about being ticklish,” Ned sighed dramatically.

“That wasn’t a lie either. I’m really not ticklish,” MJ drawled. “And if you want to keep your fingers attached to your hands like they are, then I suggest you don’t test that theory.”

Ned stopped from where he had been trying to stealthily reach a hand up to poke at her side.

“You’re at least afraid of ghosts, right?” Peter asked, cocking his head to the side. “I mean, why else would we be watching ghost movies all night?”

“Because they’re almost laughably bad,” Michelle, raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Don’t tell me you guys actually like this garbage?”

Which of course, started an immediate argument between her and Ned. Peter was planning to jump in, argue that a movie didn’t have to be a masterpiece for you to enjoy it, when he heard a loud thump from below them. Then another. He scrambled for the remote, quickly turning the TV off. Straining his ears to see if the noise would happen again, both of his friends fell silent.

“You ok, dude?” Ned asked quietly, glancing warily around the dark living room.

“Did you guys hear that?” Peter whispered, not able to find the noise again. “It sounded like something’s moving inside the floor.”

“Oh please,” MJ turned to face the boys. “You’re just trying to scare me. It’s not going to work, losers.”

“No, really! I heard some kind of thumping!”

“And I’m supposed to believe you, why?” Michelle flipped her bangs out of her eyes and stood up from the couch. “Hey! If there’s any scary ghosts in here, why don’t you grow some balls and show yourself!”

Ned and Peter waited anxiously in the following silence as if said ghost would come charging from the shadows and terrorize them. When a full minute of silence passed, MJ turned to the huddled up boys with a smug grin on her face.

“See? No ghosts in the compound,” She gave a sharp nod, hands on her hips. “Now will you two babies be ok to finish the marathon, or should we call it a night? There’s no shame if you’re too pussy to-”

Before Michelle could finish teasing her friends, the lights in the living room turned on only to turn off again immediately along with the TV. The three sat in the near pitch black room in silence. Just when Peter thought to ask FRIDAY what had happened to the lights, they began to flicker on and off rapidly. The sound of static filled the room as the TV switched back on to a glitched out version of Paranormal Activity, both the audio and visuals were too garbled to make sense of.

“Peter did you set Friday up to this?” MJ yelled over the buzzing sound of electricity that filled the room.

“No way!” Peter shouted frantically, looking around the room to find a clue as to what was going on. He didn’t have the sharp feeling of apprehension that crawled up his spine every time he was in danger, but he remained on guard. “Friday! What’s going on?”

Instead of the A.I.’s automated Irish accent filling the room, all they heard was the squealing feedback and garbled syllables of malfunctioning speakers. It was as though FRIDAY was trying to respond but found she couldn’t.

“What the hell is that!?” Ned called out over the cacophany of noises filling the living room, pointing to a couple of feet in front of the TV where something was rising out of the floor.

MJ stumbled backwards, tripping over feet and falling onto the couch, clutching onto the side of Peter that wasn’t currently being hogged by Ned. The three teens shrieked in horror as whatever was coming from below took the shape of a man, the lights and speakers shutting off completely. The backlight of the TV static was casting the figure before them in shadows.

“Is everything alright?” The figure asked, tilting its head to the side in confusion. Was that...a british accent?

“Who are you!?” Ned took a breather from the screaming he was doing to shout at the shadow before them.

“I’m Vision, are you alright?” The figure repeated.

Wait a minute.

“Hold on a sec,” Peter said warily, squinting through the darkness in confusion. “Vision? Like the superhero Vision, the one with a rock in his forehead?”

“Yes,” The figure moved like he was nodding in agreement. “Well, technically it’s a stone.”

“Friday, turn on the lights!” Peter called out, hoping whatever had happened to the A.I. was fixed now. Not two seconds later, the living room lights were on and the the three terrified teens were staring at Vision, who was floating in front of the TV in the center of the living room.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your movie,” He looked around the room, taking note of the blankets strewn about the room and the bowl of popcorn that was laying upside down on the ground. The contents of which had been flung halfway across the marble flooring when the three of them had sprung together out of fear.

“Forget the movie. Why did you come up here in the scariest way possible???” Ned yelled, sitting up from where he had been squished into Peter’s side. 

“Scary?” Vision asked, confused. 

“You kind of came through the floor,” Peter muttered sheepishly, almost a little embarrassed of being so frightened only moments ago.

“I can turn myself incorporeal and pass through solid objects,” the android explained, like that made any sense for the horror movie scene they just lived through. “I find it’s faster to go through the ceilings and floors to where I’d like to be rather than taking the elevator.”

“Then what was with the light show?” Ned asked. Obviously he was still getting over the adrenaline rush because he hadn’t started geeking out over meeting another cool, real-life superhero.

“I can pass through solid objects, but it still tends to cause occasional interference with power lines and such. When I came up I must have passed through some wires to the lights in here,” Vision made a move to stop hovering a foot above the ground in an attempt to seem less alien to the others. The girl on the other end of the couch still hadn't said anything and he hoped he wasn’t making her uncomfortable.

“And Friday?” Peter asked, still shaken up about hearing the A.I. like that. In the year that he’s been coming to the tower and Avengers Compound, he’s never heard her so much as glitch once.

“Well, technically I’m part A.I. myself,” Vision said casually, like that very statement didn’t blow Peter’s entire mind. “So, if I pass through a speaker or one of her communication lines it causes temporary interferences. I hope there’s no hard feelings over it, though.”

“None at all, Vision!” FRIDAY responded, her voice back in perfect working condition.

Funnily enough, all the answers Peter just received left him with more questions than he started with. Just how exactly did he make himself incorporeal? He was part A.I., used to be JARVIS from what Tony had mentioned once, but what was the other part? There wasn’t much shared about the Vision’s origins seeing as he was introduced to the Avengers in the wake of Ultron’s destruction. Learning about the new android on the block was less pressing than the reparation of an entire country.

“If it makes you three feel any better, I meant to go to my room,” Vision had an amused look on his face as he glanced towards the hallway the Avengers’ rooms were on. “I believe my room is right next to yours, Mr. Parker. Feel free to visit me whenever. I don’t sleep.”

Great, now he had even MORE questions.

“Oh, yeah. Of course! Thanks for the offer, Mr. Vision, uh, sir,” Peter was tripping over his words, and probably would have gotten up to shake the other hero’s hand if the thick cast surrounding his leg didn’t make it near impossible for him to get up off the couch without someone’s help or gymnastics.

“Have a good time with…” Vision trailed off as he turned to the TV, which finally had loaded up the movie again, paused on a scene with the main character sitting on the couch with her boyfriend. “Paranormal Activity 4.”

“You know this? Have you seen it before?” Ned asked incredulously.

“No, but I’ve got a direct connection to the internet. All I need to do is look at something and I can find it in an online database somewhere,” Vision shrugged like it was a casual thing for him to reveal about himself. “Anyways, goodnight.”

“You’re just gonna leave after dropping that bombshell on us?!” Ned groaned, flopping back onto the couch dramatically.

“If you’d like, I could give you a detailed summary of the movie. Like how in approximately fifteen minutes the boyfriend dies when-” Vision is interrupted by Peter and Ned yelling as loud as they can about spoilers. The android laughs and shakes his head. “That’s what I thought. I’ll see you three tomorrow. Knock on my door when you wake up, I’ll make you breakfast.”

“You cook too???” Peter gaped, seriously this dude was an enigma.

“I’d like to think of myself as a chef,” Vision hummed, already walking towards his room. “But I can’t really taste anything, so I just get whoevers willing to taste test my food, and half the Avengers refuse to taste my dishes anymore. So I’m glad you’re all here tonight! Hopefully I can make you something edible. Good night.”

“That’s almost scarier than the ghost act he pulled off earlier,” Peter chuckled breathlessly, he couldn’t believe his life.

“Speak for yourself!” Ned laughed, punching his friend in the arm. “It’s free food AND I don’t have to cook it? Sounds like a dream.”

“Oh, come on. Cooking isn’t that bad.”

“No, dude. It totally is. MJ, back me up here?”

“MJ don’t let him pull you to the darkside! You have so much to live-” Peter fell silent when he saw her still sitting quietly next to him, eyes wide and both hands clutching his right arm. “You ok, MJ?”

“What?” Michelle sat up, quickly letting go of Peter’s arm and schooling her features into an apathetic stare again. It only half-worked. “Yeah, I’m fine. Gross food, whatever. I don’t know how to cook either.”

“So much for not scared of anything, huh?” Ned smirked, waggling his eyebrows over at MJ yet again. “I think you screamed the loudest out of all of us.”

“I did not! I was just surprised,” she countered, but she couldn’t stop her face from turning red as she looked anywhere but at her two best friends.

“I knew it!” Peter crowed in triumph. “You’re totally scared of ghosts! This is the greatest day of my life, they’ll dedicate books to this historic moment in time. Immortalize it every-”

“If you put this anywhere I will end you, Parker,” MJ growled, swiping the TV remote of the coffee table. 

“Is that a promise?”

“You bet your lily white ass it is,” Michelle huffed as she turned the movie back on so she could ignore him and Ned. “And if I don’t kill you? Then Vision’s experimental cooking will.”

**Author's Note:**

> forgot to post this shit yesterday lmao my bad.
> 
> also this fic updates every other week! but in between updates I'll be uploading a new chapter to Muse if you wanna go check that out. thanks for reading!


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